There is increasing knowledge of the danger to future humanity of the discharge of contaminated water into the subsurface water table, rivers or into the sea. Accordingly, efforts are being made to remove various contaminants from water before it is reused or discharged. If such water is not reused, it is considered a waste stream which is leaving a processing area and is processed before being disposed of by discharge into the underground basin, rivers, or the sea. A number of processes have been employed to attempt to clarify water waste streams. However, in the case of already contaminated ground water, it is pumped to a remediation process line(s). Sometimes the contaminants are in the form of organic contaminants, from a wide range of hydrocarbons, to bacteria, such as salmonella and E. Coli. Other times, inorganics are included. The principal components of such contaminants are carbon and hydrogen. One important way for the purification of hydrocarbon-containing water waste streams is the oxidation of the organic contaminants. When the carbon and hydrogen are oxidized, the remaining materials are usually in such small concentration that they present no problem. Inorganic metals remaining after such oxidation can sometimes be converted to insoluble salts and precipitated out.
Various methods of oxidation and separation have been attempted. Oxidation has been attempted by bubbling air or substantially pure oxygen or ozone through the water waste stream, or by irradiating with ultraviolet radiation. Such oxidation attempts have been practiced at substantially ambient temperatures and, as a result, with little ionization and no temperature increase, the oxidation reaction has been limited.
When the water waste stream is pumped through a cavitation nozzle, desirable effects occur which result in ionization of the water which causes oxidation of the contaminants. However, cavitation nozzles of fixed dimension have a limited dynamic range in which they can operate at optimum conditions. Thus, there is need for improvement.